Banks in Oman register 10 per cent growth in credit at OMR22b

Oman’s financial institutions, including Islamic banks, have achieved a 10.1 per cent growth at OMR22.1 billion by the end of December 2016, over the same period of last year.

Credit to the private sector increased by 10.1per cent to OMR19.7 billion by December, 2016. Of the total credit to the private sector, the household sector (mainly under personal loans) stood at 46.5 per cent closely followed by the non-financial corporate sector at 45.2 per cent, financial corporations at 5.1 percent and other sectors the remaining 3.2 per cent, according to the monthly statistics released by the Central Bank of Oman. 

Total deposits registered a growth of 5.2 per cent to OMR20.4 billion as at the end of December 2016.

Private sector deposits of the banking system grew by 4.9 per cent to OMR13.3billionas at the end of December2016. Sector-wise, the share of households was 48.6percent of the total private sector deposit base, followed by non-financial corporations at 28.5percent, financial corporations at 19.8 percent and the other sectors at 3.1percent.

Review of the activities of conventional banks denotes an annual growthin total outstanding credit of 7.6percent as at the end of December2016.

Credit to the private sector increased by 8.2 per cent to reach OMR17.5 billion as at the end of December2016. Conventional banks’ overall investments in securities stood at OMR2.4 billion as at the end of December.

“The banking sector remained resilient supporting the economic diversification initiatives and credit needs,” noted the report.

Islamic banks provided financing to the extent of OMR2.4 billion as at the end of December 2016 when compared to OMR1.8 billion a year ago.

Total deposits held with Islamic banks and windows also registered a significant increase to OMR2.2billion in December 2016 from OMR1.5 billion outstanding as at the end of December

2015. The total assets of Islamic banks and windows combined, amounted to OMR3.1billion as at the end of December2016,which constituted about 10.3 percent of the banking system assets.

Source :Times Of Oman